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I step forward, and my eyes fill. “I’m sorry, Mads. You weren’t supposed to…”
“Hear it like this?” One corner of her mouth lifts in a humorless quirk as her own eyes glisten with tears.
I take another step and reach out, even more tentatively than Kit. She falls into my arms, and I hug her tight.
“I was young,” I whisper. “Younger than you. Your mom and dad had just found out they couldn’t have kids, and your mom wanted one so badly.”
She nods against my shoulder and snuffles.
“She was—” My voice catches. “She was an amazing mother.”
Madison sags against me, a sob ripping from her, and I hold her tight. When she pulls away, it’s only a little, just enough to see my face.
“She didn’t want me to know,” she says. “Even after she was gone.”
I shake my head. “No, shedidwant you to know. There’s a video I’m supposed to show you. She’ll—she’ll talk to you about it. I just… It wasn’t time yet. She hadn’t been gone long enough, and it felt like… It felt like…”
Jayla fills in the words for me. “Like giving you a new mother when you lost your own, Madison. A substitute. Laney wouldn’t have done that until you were ready.”
“And Anna is still your mom,” I say. “She will always be your mom. I never regretted that.”
“And my father? My biological one?” She tenses in my arms. “Tell me what that asshole said… That he didn’t mean it like that. That he’s not…” She glances over her shoulder at Kit. “Was it you? You guys grew up together.”
He shakes his head, and her face falls in disappointment. Then she gives a wry smile. “No, if I do the math, Laney was fifteen. That’d make you thirteen.”
“Yeah.”
“I wish it was you,” she says, her voice the faintest whisper.
Kit comes in and hugs us both. “I wish it was, too. But if you thought that’s why I care about you? That you must be my daughter? No. I care about you because I care aboutyou.”
Tears fall on her cheeks, and I slip out of their grasp to let her hug Kit.
After a moment, Madison steps away from Kit and looks at the door. “It was him, wasn’t it. That’s what he meant. About me being his daughter and Sadie’s niece.”
“I was young,” I say. “Really young.”
“He’s older than you.” She looks at me. “How much older?”
“A few years.” I make a face. “Let’s not talk about that.”
“He raped you, didn’t he?”
My whole body convulses. Jayla inhales sharply. Kit looks at me, stricken.
“I… don’t know who told you that,” I say carefully.
“No one did.” She backs up, arms crossing. “I could tell he’d done something like that by the way you act around him. The way Kit and Jayla act about him being around you. I figured he did something when you were young, but then it seemed weird that you wouldn’t try to keepmeaway from him. Now it makes sense. He isn’t that kind of a threat to his own daughter.”
“He didn’t…” I flounder.Take control, damn it. This is herfather.These are the circumstances of her conception, and you were never going to let her know those circumstances.“I had a lot to drink. There was some confusion.”
“Some confusion…” she says slowly. “In other words, you were drunk, and he took advantage. Of a fifteen-year-old girl. That’s rape.”
Jayla cuts in. “Does it matter, Mads? He’s an asshole, as you already noted. That’s all you need to know.”
“Is it?” Madison turns to me and shrugs. “Fine, he’s an asshole. Not a crime, sadly. So I should probably get to know him. Take my friends to meet him. Would that be okay?”
I flinch.
